LOS ANGELES — Andy Pages had a great 2025 campaign with the Dodgers, but there were times when his plate discipline was, shall we say, lacking. And it’s exactly that tendency which cost a bunch of gamblers a big wad of cash, according to the indictment handed down against two Cleveland Guardians pitchers.
According to the federal indictment, Cleveland closer Emmanuel Clase was working with bettors on certain pitch outcomes, including one on May 28 against the Dodgers. The plan, at least as it’s laid out by prosecutors, was simple: a bet was placed that Clase’s first pitch to Andy Pages would be a ball. Clase was supposed to make that happen.
Only one problem. Pages swung.
That at-bat now sits at the center of the Dodgers’ connection to the scandal. Clase came in to close out the game for the Guardians (they had a comfortable lead, so the outcome wasn’t really in doubt) and, per the indictment, was in on a wager that his first pitch of the inning would miss the zone. Leading off the inning was the freeswinging Andy Pages. He threw a first-pitch slider that bounced in the dirt. That should have been perfect for the people who put money on it.
But Pages isn’t wired to be passive at the plate, even when it comes to pitches well out of the strike zone. Pages’ chase rate is 33%, good for only the 18th percentile in MLB. So when he offered at it, it wasn’t that shocking to anyone who followed the Boys in Blue. Only problem was that the swing knocked the whole bet off course, and the gamblers on the other end reportedly lost $4,000 when the pitch was ruled a swinging strike. Clase even texted back a sad puppy emoji afterward, which prosecutors say was his way of saying he held up his end even though the bet didn’t any cash on the deal. A couple pitches later, Pages ended up grounding out on a pitch that was almost in exactly the same spot. I suppose that Clase thought, “As long as you keep swinging at it, Ima keep throwin’ it.”
From a Dodger perspective, that’s the wild part. A rookie outfielder, just trying to compete in the ninth inning, accidentally blew up what prosecutors are calling a scheme to manipulate pitch-by-pitch wagers–so-called “prop bets.” Pages wasn’t trying to “protect the integrity of the game.” He was trying to get a hit. And that was enough to wreck the plan.
Federal authorities say Clase and his Guardians teammate Luis L. Ortiz were part of a broader setup that stretched across the 2023 and 2025 seasons, with multiple alleged attempts to line up what would happen on specific pitches. That’s the part that’s so troubling for MLB. Pitch-level bets are all over legal sportsbooks now, and a single player in on the fix can nudge an outcome without changing the box score. A ball instead of a strike. A slider in the dirt instead of a cutter on the corner. Most fans would never notice.
Clase still got through the inning on 10 pitches, Cleveland still won the game, and anyone just watching the highlights would have thought nothing of it. But prosecutors are using that moment as an example of how close the scheme came to working. It also shows how fragile this kind of cheating is. All it takes is one hitter who doesn’t follow the script.
Since late July, MLB has had both Clase and Ortiz on paid leave while the league sorts through the gambling investigation. Now the Justice Department has weighed in, and the potential penalties are massive. The charges include wire fraud conspiracy, honest services wire fraud conspiracy, conspiracy to influence sporting contests by bribery, and money laundering conspiracy. If convicted on everything, they could be looking at decades in prison. Both players have denied the allegations.
This all lands in a year when MLB has already been on high alert about gambling. Tucupita Marcano was banned for life. Several other players across the league drew suspensions for betting on baseball. An umpire even lost his job after the league said he didn’t protect the game’s integrity. The Dodgers, to their credit, have mostly been bystanders watching other franchises deal with the fallout.
But on May 28, they were right in the middle of it. And the guy who inadvertently messed up some carefully laid plans was a young Dodger trying to make a name for himself. Andy Pages didn’t just battle in a ninth-inning at-bat. He unknowingly exposed just how risky it is when players and gamblers try to choreograph a sport that’s built on unpredictability.
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